How do I get my affiliates to respond to me when I send them messages?
There is no easy answer to this question.
I suppose, that if I had deep pockets, I could entice them by offering a reward of some kind to get them to respond. Well, I don’t have deep pockets. In fact I really “sweat” hard each month to maintain my Bronze Team Leader rank. So this method is not an option for me. But then, I don’t think it is very wise to offer additional rewards to your team.
Do I really want someone in my team who has to be continually given someone extra to be active in SFI? Do I really want someone in my team who won’t grasp the HUGE POTENTIAL of SFI? Do I really want someone in my team who is not prepared to work and learn and apply and do?
My answer to those questions is “No!” SFI offers plenty of rewards to those who want to work. It’s just amazing.
So, what other ways can I encourage my team to respond? Let me tell you what I am doing and the new things I am implementing now.
1. The first thing I do is implement the SFI system as best I can. SFI gives us heaps of advice and encouragement about when and how I should communicate with my affiliates and I would be foolish to ignore that advice.
If you are not doing this, you should be. Please make the best use of the experience and research that SFI has build up over the years that you can. SFI is the expert. So study what SFI advices and try it for yourself.
Such things as the welcome letter, weekly teammails, stream posts, individual e-cards - including such things as translating your messages into their native language.
And, I do as many of the other things, which are not specific to my team, as well, that I have time to do. Such things are being active in the forum and in writing answers to ASK SC questions.
These additional things develop your status among the SFI community and provide you with your own training materials that you then have available to use with your team. Your activity in these things will also be reflected in your badges – the number of “likes” you have, your “Forum Guru” badge, your “Biz Quiz” rating etc. At the end of the day your team member may start to take notice of you when he/she realizes that you know what you are talking about and that you are a respected member of the SFI community.
2. As I do these things I develop my own style and I “twig” what I write about and how I write it. I’m always trying to think up a “better way” to do it.
3. And I do all these things consistently – daily and weekly. Hence my team will see that I am working. Again maybe one day they will decide to take notice and follow my example.
4. What am I doing that is new? I’m really pleased that we can now include an image in our Stream Posts, Leadership Page blogs and Forum posts. This has made me “vamp” up what I do in each of these forums.
I am trying to write more frequent Stream posts – my aim is to do one every day (but that is not always possible). And how I write my Stream Posts has changed too. Now I am writing short “inspirational” posts about what to do, or how to do it, or what attitude we should have.
And for each I upload a personal photo from my “family” albums to illustrate the point I am trying to make. And in my post I mention who is in the photo and what they are doing. And I end with a short tip that applies my post to SFI.
I am hoping that the photo will encourage my team member to read the post.
And because it is about me and/or a member of my family and what we are doing, I am hoping that my team member will come to know me better and hence to trust me more. Hopefully this will lead to them beginning to “do what I do”!
It’s too early to say if this new approach is working any better than what I have done in the past. But I am enjoying doing it and, again, I hope to get better at doing it over time too.
Of course, when I do get a response I reply as fully and quickly as possible and I try to be encouraging. Normally I just get a very short response from my affiliate and my reply is much longer. And sometimes I do not receive a response at all. But I just keep going. One day I will find someone who does understand the potential of SFI and who will be prepared to work.
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